


These Muscles Named Desire

by solarpillar (solarwind)



Category: The Epic of Gilgamesh
Genre: M/M, Pneumonia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3569279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarwind/pseuds/solarpillar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Retelling of Gilgamesh's story in late 20th century New Orleans. Deliberate badfic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Muscles Named Desire

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry for writing this.

This is my story. This is not a story of my greatness, as you must have expected. I am a great man, yes, and I am showered in praise, and all of my biographies are about my greatness. But this one, written of my own hands, will not be about my greatness. It will be about my friendship. I have nothing to lose now, so I will be as frank as possible. I had a great friend, the greatest of all friends, with whom I shared a friendship that only my mother and myself knew.

It started in New Orleans, 1947.

I met him in Elysian Fields. Enkidu, the wild man of local church’s basement opera troop. He stood there, proud as a beast, his lacy corseted dress barely hiding his well-honed muscles. He could wrestle a lion and win, I thought, and the idea of fighting him excited me. He must have felt my gaze upon him, for he turned to me, his lacy fan closed and held up like a dagger, while the well-endowed area between his legs became erect as the tower of Pisa. His bull-like eyes were fiery enough to scare off elephants.

“You. Are you the brat giving the local maidens trouble?”

How strong was his voice. I nodded, and he charged at me, his hands caught me as if to strangulate me. Oh, he was. Had I let him he would have crushed my throat, but I kicked him in the weak spot of the knee, and he fell, cursing.

I held out of my hand to him. I told him that he was my equal, and truth to be told, I only seduced maidens because I had never met a well-endowed man such as him, and now that I did, I would like to enjoy exclusively this brave male maiden. I took him home and enjoyed his brave erectness, and when he was finished I introduced him to my own. He moaned with pleasure between coughs and fits, and as he glubbed down pear syrup by bottlefuls I learned he might not have much time left.

I called him friend, and told him about the Cedar Avenue. 

I was a spoiled rich kid back then, who was living a happy life of decadence and debauchery. It was a good life, yet empty, and meaningless. And worse, there were boys richer than I was, and it made me unhappy. I was convinced that if I had their riches, I would not feel so empty. Enkidu could fill me up however he tried, but his friendship did not suffice.

One of these rich boys lived in Cedar Avenue. Worse, he was to marry my sister. Even worse, I was to drive her to him by Sunday. I might have suggested her marrying him out of spite, because insufferable money-hoarders should marry each other, that was a bit too much for my sensitive man heart. Gas was expensive and I’d rather drive her if it was out of the town, not two blocks up our villa. You could find it by the smell of the cedar they used to built the houses, supposedly to ward against termites. You could smell it right at our villa, if you opened the window as the wind blew this way.

The entire street was lined with mansions, built on an artificial hill constructed from the making of the canal. The hill was demolished in 1922 when the nouveaux-riches arrived and complained of the shabbiness of its dirt, so they brought stones from under the sea, rich with small fossils, and rebuilt the hill with them. And they built their mansions there, right on top. They then imported the blackest, richest of soil, planted flowers and trees suitable to their tastes. It was the Elysian Field of Elysian Fields. It was the cedar shades of the myths.

Obviously, it meant we must break in, take a look, and maybe more than a look. I did not plan to take much, just one trinket or two, to prove that their riches cannot stay theirs forever.

And with the stolen money, Enkidu might be able to buy more than mere syrup for his condition. Maybe even a cure. Maybe a farmland, away from the smog of the city, so his lungs may rest.

I invited Enkidu over for the rest of the week, informed him of my plans as he repeatedly introduced his manliness to me. Who knew such firm structure could be hiding in plain sight under layers of lace, dress and petticoat? The firmness aroused such brother-like friendship for him in my heart, that my mother adopted him before Sunday. As such, Enkidu was not only my friend, but my brother. And like brothers we shared a bed that night, not for mere hours but the entire night, and we sat erect and established our brotherly love.

When Sunday came, I drove my sister to the rich kid of Cedar Avenue, Enkidu in the backseat, and once we got there I got quite emotional. But know this, I was not, is not, and never will be an impulsive man. I waited for many months, letting my sister drain the guy dry, and before long he was not even able to afford a nightwatch. He let his servants sleep in the small shack in the back, and the main house was left unguarded except a few dogs and several heavy locks. I gathered a small group of boys and raided his place.

These men, flaunting their riches, swimming in money while never have to work a single day of their life. They deserved it. He deserved it. I felt like the divine instrument of gods, bringing judgement and retribution. Not that I have worked a single day of my life either, but he married my sister and called my Enkidu five penny tranny. 

It would be fine, should he kept to his own bedroom. He did not. Insomnia, as it appeared. From stress. He woke up and walked right in, opened his eyes, searched for his glasses in vain, before yelling and threatened to call the police. But I, see, was his kinsman. My sister was his wife, so I was his brother-in-law. I explained to him that I was merely visiting, and was searching for an important piece of my sister’s belongings. He had none of it, called Enkidu names that I should not repeat here, and went for the phone.

Before I knew anything, I hit him square in the head with a marble replica of Hippocrates. Now, that single hit would have been fine. But Enkidu, still enraged over the names my brother-in-law had called him, hit him again with a bronze bust of Nerva. Like the starting punch to a barfight, the situation escalated, and my boys each picked up a bust of some musician or philosopher or long dead kings, and started to beat the poor young man to a pulp between wondering aloud why in the world was the Hippocrates bust marble and the Nerva bust bronze and not the other way around. Then something cracked audibly.

Not the man’s skull, that was already tomato paste. It was a marble replica.

Weeds. Headful of weeds, packed so densely it was brick.

That wasn’t illegal back then, but still expensive. We broke every single statue we could find, pocketing all the goodnesses within. 

Then it had occurred us that we broke at least three laws. We had to sacrifice one of us, who would preferably be loyal enough to never snitch the rest of us. The dead man couldn’t have killed himself, all of the blows were from the back.

The boys were all grown up from the same potato patch. None was willing to sacrifice another, for they were all as brothers. I not as close to them, but I was their leader, and it was inconceivable to name me. 

Obviously, they all named Enkidu. He was the only one who was not of us, not to mention that he threw down the first bronze bust.

I had none of it. I made it clear that Enkidu will not take the fall for us. I told them that I would take Enkidu west to the deserts of Texas where wise trigger-happy rednecks are, and if anyone followed us, well, my troop of trigger-happy rednecks and our shotguns will be waiting for them.

And with that, and a quick, messy paint job, I took Enkidu and drove away in my brother-in-law’s car.

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry. Two more acts to go.


End file.
